


Keep Calm And Pour the Tea

by gardnerhill



Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Episode Related, Episode s01e15: A Giant Gun Filled with Drugs, Gen, Nightmares, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 11:59:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The job has its drawbacks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Calm And Pour the Tea

**Author's Note:**

> Contains spoilers for the Elementary episodes "A Giant Gun Filled With Drugs" and "The Deductionist."
> 
>  **WARNING:** Graphic depiction of blood and violence in first paragraph sequence.

_Four bleeding out, severed arteries, get their types - carotid and jugular goes first, pump him full dammit it's wasted all over the floor where the HELL is the crash cart, oh god the nurse is down, gunshot, arterial blood, no one's coming in to stop this. Second surgeon, fuck he's down, gunshot, more blood, goddammit who let this fucking maniac into the OR - triage, the heart-stab's DOA, both heart-shots ditto, leaves cutthroat, shout for plasma, start suturing right on the floor, blood pumping out all over, spraying warm and salty, shit shit shit HIV procedures, 6 months tests, suture the carotid one-handed, hold the jugular closed with the other, shout for backup, get someone in here goddammit, someone, anyone, flesh growing cold under the gloved fingers, heart fluttering empty, nothing to pump -_

*** 

Joan made herself stop washing her hands after the requisite twenty seconds. They were not covered with blood; there was no blood in her mouth and nostrils and hair and eyes either. The four patients were already beyond her assistance when she'd first seen them. Patients – corpses. Bodies. Trail of a murderer's escape. 

She added this to the things to tell Rachel on Wednesday. 

_"Anything you’d like to tell me, Joan?" "Oh yeah, you saw the news about that psychotic killer family? The patient who murdered four people – two cops and two doctors – in his OR in 30 seconds? I got to walk around an operating theatre that had turned into a slaughterhouse. Blood on everything, everywhere but where it's supposed to be – including inside the four dead people in there, who should have felt safe and in control – and two of whom should have been saving the dying, not being the dying. A place that used to be my domain, turned into a charnel-house. So, same time next week?"_

Sherlock was either asleep or reading files or pestering the graveyard down at the precinct or pouring acid on dolls. If this was the way he normally lived, then keeping junkie's hours had not been a major realignment for him. She headed downstairs to the stove and the kettle and the cabinet. 

A single light on downstairs; the kitchen. Smells of cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, clove, milk. He wasn't reading files. 

"I recommend the masala chai, Watson," Sherlock said from the kitchen table, where he held a steaming mug. He was barefoot and wearing his sleep-sweats. "The blend of spices is conducive to bringing peace of mind and serenity." 

She tried not to look but the kitchen clock still let her know it was nearly 3. "I won't get back to sleep if I drink this," Joan said. 

"When sleep is not a guarantee of rest, it hardly matters."

Joan opened her mouth, then closed it. Fuck it. She took up the warm fragrant teapot and poured the milky blend into her mug. "Bad dream?" 

"Warning dream." His entire face was hidden by the mug except his lowered eyes. "I take it you continue to see the violated operating room from the Ennis case."

Joan set the teapot down rapidly rather than drop it, and took three deep breaths. He was not a mind-reader. He had made yet another logical extrapolation – this time, of what would most affect a former surgeon from the many disquieting moments of her new life. 

"As I feared." There was only sadness in his voice. 

One more deep breath, and Joan raised the pot again. The earthy scents rose up to embrace her nose as the pale brown fluid flowed into the mug. Tea, comfort and consolation; something a white British national and an American of Chinese descent could wholly agree upon. She moved to her seat at the table, cradling the mug that bore the emblems of all four Hogwarts houses. 

Joan made herself shrug as she took the first sip. "New profession, a whole new set of nightmares – apparently."

One of Sherlock's eyebrows arched. "Were there any particular unpleasant dreams associated with becoming a sober companion?" 

She nodded. "Failure dreams – showing up at a client's home to find him or her dead of an overdose. That sort of thing." _Fear; stepping on syringes and feeling the needle pierce the skin,_ she did not say – she wasn't about to trigger Sherlock with a drug-use memory. "But this is one of the reasons why I go to Rachel once a week. And you've now got Alfredo to talk to, as well as me." 

"Mm." Sherlock pushed over the plate that sat on the table in front of him. It was covered with the jam-filled sandwich cookies from England he liked so much – biscuits, Joan corrected herself as she took a couple for her saucer, called Jammie Dingers or something like that. Comfort food to go with the comfort drink. 

The clock ticked. The brownstone creaked in the manner of all old buildings. Clyde crunched on a bit of Romaine in his aquarium tank; everyone in the house was having a midnight snack, it seemed. Joan whimsically thought of the queen bee of Sherlock's hive guzzling a little extra honey out of a cell and moodily staring out over the lit and bustling night city. Do bees have nightmares about dead flowers? 

The tea was warm, and the spices were warmer. She felt her heart rate slow to its normal pace, despite the stimulating effect of caffeinated tea, and a kind of peace spread through her. She blinked once, and did not feel blood gumming her eyelashes. She could not have helped in that OR – at best, she would have lived a few seconds longer, and more likely she would have been the first killed, examining the anomaly on her table. 

_A death for a death_ \- 

She stopped that train of thought instantly. Definitely talking to Rachel about this. 

“I saw your finger,” Sherlock said, setting down his Statue of Liberty mug.

Joan looked up. “I beg your pardon?”

He met her eyes. “In that box on our doorstep. Not Emily’s right forefinger. Yours.” 

_\- A surgeon, judging by your hands. -_

_\- It could have been a knife. -_

_\- If something were ever to happen to you, I am not sure I'd be able to forgive myself. -_  


Click, click, click click click – 

“- And that’s why you’ve been on my back about defending myself,” Joan said. “That’s why you’ve been obsessive about the singlestick stuff, and those damn ‘tests.’” 

“You were bound, and at the mercy of the merciless.” His voice wavered, just a little. “You were within reach of a man who did not hesitate to mutilate a captive woman’s hand to extort money.”

And this was his terrible fear, that had him up at 3 drinking chai. 

_\- I smelled the beeswax on your hands…_ From the very first, he’d been drawn to her hands, deducing the work they did – that they had done. 

She lowered her face into her steaming cup to hide the flush of warmth at the revelation. Best deflect it with humor. “Sherlock, I hate to break it to you, but I have been a woman my whole life.”

“I am aware,” he said just as dryly, “that a woman of your build must perforce learn ways to keep herself safe from a very early age. It is a hazard of being born with the appearance of a woman – especially one living in a white-male-dominant culture that too often fetishizes Asian women–”

“Thank you,” Joan said emphatically, and took a long sip of tea. It was not said in sarcasm but in appreciation at the acknowledgement. 

“However, you encountered that sociopath solely because you are now involved with the work I do. I doubt any of your other former clients have given you a red-carpet tour of Dominican druglords’ lairs.”

 _Or joked about my menstrual cycle_ \- which she now understood was him successfully deflecting her from noticing how worried he was about the danger of their situation by pissing her off. She pursed her lips, gave him a shrewd look, and nodded, and saw the acknowledgement in his own expression. She didn’t have to say anything – she knew, and she knew that he knew she knew. Her new skills had their drawbacks; this was not one of them. 

She held up both hands before him, fingers spread, and waggled them a little. 

He smiled, his eyes sad. “I wish I could reassure you as easily.” 

“You caught Ennis.” 

“We caught him.” 

Sherlock had done the actual work of tracking down and catching Ennis, but she didn’t argue. “I’m beginning to think that half the work we do is to bring peace to the dead.” She exhaled loudly. “If that made any sense.” 

“I see it as exposing the lie and telling the truth.” 

Joan nodded. “So that’s why no one likes us.”

That was it, really. What was the truth about the Ennis rampage, beyond the doings of a psychotic murderer? Revenge, for a wronged family – in the eyes of the siblings, they were only avenging their parents’ lost honor. The kidnapping, a DEA agent wanting in on the easy millions of the _demi-monde_ of his new life, stealing it back from a thief of a drug-dealer. Innocents had died, been hurt, and that was the part that lay like a brand on both of them, even into their dreams. 

That was her work now: Peace for the dead, truth from the lies – and protection of the innocents preyed upon by the sociopaths of the world. It was a kind of war she and Sherlock fought together. And if this was a war, the OR nightmare was her first real war wound. 

She’d tell Rachel. She’d deal with this. Nightmares would not stop her from doing her work. 

Sherlock held out the teapot. Joan held out her mug, and Sherlock topped her off. She looked right at the kitchen clock – 4:30. Another half-hour and she could go out for an early run. 

“I’ll come with you,” Sherlock said. 

She took a long drink to hide her smile. Oh, Mr. Holmes, aren’t we clever. So he thought he was going to babysit her? If she objected he’d point out that she’d been nagging him to get some exercise.

He’d soon regret that. 

Half an hour. 

She chugged down the tea like a longshoreman doing shots and thumped the mug down. 

He blinked and stared at her. “Watson?”

“If you’re coming with me, you start stretching,” she said, and stood. “Up. Now. Running shoes on and back here in 5 minutes.” 

The dread in his eyes was not feigned as he headed to his room.

An unholy grin spread across her face as she trotted upstairs to fetch her own gear. A run all the way around Central Park – twice – should change his mind. It might also wear them both out enough to sleep dreamlessly for a few more hours when they got back. 

Besides, who knew what criminal activity they could thwart along the way?


End file.
